


Alacrity - Vacation

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1530]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22300957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony was looking forward to a Christmas Vacation on the beach in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be in the cards.
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1530]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: 2020 Twelve Days of Christmas, The Writer's Guild Community





	Alacrity - Vacation

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 07/09/2003 for the word [alacrity](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/07/09/alacrity).
> 
> alacrity[ uh-lak-ri-tee ]  
> noun  
> cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness:  
> We accepted the invitation with alacrity.  
> liveliness; briskness.
> 
> This is for Day 5 of the Twelve Days of Christmas challenge. Today's prompt is Snuggling for Warmth.

Tony couldn’t believe that he was actually going to be able to spend Christmas in the nice balmy streets of Los Angeles. He’d tried many years before to make a Christmas trip to Los Angeles, but something always came up that prevented him from going. Last year, it had been a high priority case that came in at the last minute and the year before that his dad had unexpectedly come to town.

He’d told Gibbs well in advance about his vacation and Gibbs had promised that nothing would interfere with it this time or at least nothing in Gibbs’ control would. That wouldn’t stop his father from visiting unexpectedly to spend time with his son at Christmas, but Tony knew for a fact that he’d just gotten married again and would be more likely to spend the holiday with his new wife. Of course, it was always possible the new wife would want to meet Tony, so he’d tried to head that off at the pass by suggesting to his new wife that they take the time to bond just the two of them and Tony would join them next year if they wanted. 

He wasn’t surprised when she accepted. Senior tended to marry the same kind of woman and they weren’t ones that wanted to hang out and play happy family. Even if she decided she wanted to play “happy family” next year, the chances that she would still be married to Senior were rather slim, so Tony took the win and wasn’t going to worry about it.

He already had the tickets purchased. Now, he was just counting the days until his flight. They passed faster when they caught a hot case, but Gibbs had kept them on cold cases as much as possible in an attempt to prevent the cases from interfering with Tony’s planned trip which was only two weeks away now. 

If they caught a case today they might finish it before Tony went on vacation, but most cases would take too long to close even if they started them today. Things pretty much had to go perfectly to get all the evidence needed to wrap up a case in two weeks. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if they stayed on cold cases the entire time. 

Everyone was getting bored of looking at the unsolved cases and both Ziva and McGee had shot Tony death glares. They blamed him for them being stuck on the crappy cases. The truth is there were other options that would allow them to continue to work their normal cases even with Tony gone, but Gibbs hated breaking in new people and would pretty much only do that if the director forced him to.

Tony kind of wanted Vance to force Gibbs’ hand on this matter, but he also had no desire to deal with the fallout. It didn’t help that pretty much every agent requested to not work with Gibbs around Christmas. While Tony had never understood why so many people found Gibbs to be hard to work with, it was definitely true that he was more of a bastard around Christmas. Tony really couldn’t blame the other agents for not wanting to chance it.

Tony had never gotten to the bottom of why Gibbs was always so angry around the holidays. He assumed that it had something to do with his dead wife and daughter, but he really had no idea. The entire team could use some shaking up in Tony’s eyes, but he knew that was wishful thinking.

Gibbs literally would not think about adding or even temporarily training anyone else for the team. The only time they ever got people was if Gibbs magically met someone that he thought was good or if they were forced to take on someone by the director. It allowed them to grow stagnant and none of them improved as well as they could have if they had a fresh set of eyes periodically.

Tony shook his head to free it from his musings. He was getting tired of cold cases too to be honest. He couldn’t really blame McGee or Ziva for the glares, but it really wasn’t his fault. The days continued to drag on as they whiled away their time looking at cold cases that had been dead for years. 

“How do they expect us to find anything on these? There are no clues, let alone any evidence,” Ziva protested, waving her hands in frustration.

“That’s why it’s a cold case, Zi-va,” Tony emphasized the second syllable of her name.

Ziva glared at Tony and he just grinned back with alacrity. Needless to say they didn’t make much progress that day either. They looked at many cold cases throughout the week hoping that they would find a clue that was missed for one of them, but so far none of them had worked out any sort of clue to close any of the cases. 

Tony frowned as an alert from the weather app came in on his phone. He had it set to only tell him about extreme weather. Any alerts from it could not be good news. 

Tony picked up his phone and thumbed past the lock screen to see the full notification. Snow? It was going to snow?

This couldn’t be. Tony flipped to the daily forecast and stared in dismay as the forecast predicted snow from now until after his flight was supposed to leave. “What? This can’t be.”

“What’s wrong, Tony?” Ziva prodded.

“Snow!” 

“Snow?”

“If this forecast is accurate, there’s no way my flight is going to get off the ground.”

“No sunny Florida for you?” McGee asked.

“It was California.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I really thought I’d be able to escape the cold this winter.”

“Maybe you don’t need to.”

“What?” Tony shot McGee a confused look.

“Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean it has to be cold.”

“Aw, do you want to snuggle, McCuddly?”

“No,” McGee gave Tony a look. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep yourself warm during winter.”

“It’s not a matter of keeping myself warm.”

“Then what is it?”

“There’s just something about the way the sun rays bask along your skin. It gives a serenity that just can’t be reproduced in the snow.”

“Philosophical today, DiNozzo?” Gibbs interrupted.

Tony shrugged. “It’s hard not to be when talking about Los Angeles.”

“You really like it there?” McGee asked perplexed.

“What’s not to like about the sun and the beach and all the hot girls?”

“You’re so shallow.”

Tony shrugged. “You’re just jealous.”

“Nothing to be jealous of.”

They returned to their case files, but it continued to be a waste of time. Tony kept staring at the forecast distracted. Finally, Gibbs sent them home.

It went like that every day that week. Tony just couldn’t believe that they were getting snow. DC never got snow.

It was already getting difficult to drive in. He’d had to take public transport to get to work today. It really looked like his flight was going to be cancelled. 

He didn’t know what he was going to do if it actually got cancelled. He’d been looking forward to this vacation for weeks. As the snow grew and grew, the frown on his face deepened more and more.

Everyone noticed, but he couldn’t be bothered to pretend to be happy. Snow was not what he was looking forward to today. He never bought into the whole White Christmas thing.

Tony glanced up as Abby came bounding into the bullpen. “Isn’t it great?”

“What?”

“The snow.” Abby twirled around happily.

“How is this great?”

“We can make snow angels and have a snowball fight. It’s awesome.”

“That just sounds cold.”

“But afterwards we can come in and have hot chocolate and snuggle to warm up.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s only in fairytales, Abs.”

“We can make it a reality.”

“I’d rather make Los Angeles a reality.”

“But that’s not in the cards. The planes won’t fly in this weather and since it’s weather related they won’t even cover the cost to get you a ticket on a different flight.”

“Way to be a downer, Abs.”

“Aw. Don’t be sad.” Abby gave Tony a big hug. “Come on, we can plan a team get together. I’m sure Gibbs will be happy to offer up his home for our gathering place.”

“Abs,” Gibbs warned.

“Com on, Gibbs.” Abby batted her eyelashes at him. 

“Fine. My house 7 o’clock.”

“Yay!” Abby bounced excitedly.

“Now back to work, all of you,” Gibbs growled.

The team refocused on the cold cases, but when they finally called it a night there was still no progress on any of them. Everyone made plans to meet up at Gibbs’ house again tomorrow. Tony still didn’t know what everyone was so excited about.

It was snow. Nothing fun. He didn’t see why anyone enjoyed playing in this stuff. He was going because with the cancellation of his flight, he really didn’t have anywhere else to be.

Abby dragged them all snowshoeing and sledding. It was wet and cold. Tony still didn’t see how this was fun. 

Everyone else was laughing and having fun. Tony tried to fake it, but he really wished he was in California like he’d planned to be. Eventually they all went inside and Gibbs started a fire in the fireplace.

It helped take the edge off, but didn’t really touch the cold in the air. Fortunately, Abby had a plan for that too. Soon hot chocolate and coffee was being passed out and everyone was snuggling together for warmth.

It wasn’t Los Angeles, but it was warm in a different way. Here he was surrounded by the warmth of friendship and family. They passed the night around the fire sharing laughter and jokes and eventually sleep.

The next morning they played some more. Even had a snowball fight and wrestled on the ground. Once again they shared hot chocolate, coffee, and other warm drinks to chase the winter chill away.

They even opened presents. Tony was surprised by how many gifts he’d gotten. He’d expected everyone to give him something, but nothing like this. Each present was heartfelt and he truly felt like he was part of the family.

The team was his family, even more so than his real family. He still wasn’t overly fond of the snow, but he had to admit that he was starting to see why it was considered so romantic. Not that he was interested in anyone that way, but despite things feeling unfinished at the office this vacation seemed a little on the idyllic side.

Eventually, they had to return to work, however. The break seemed to be just what the team needed as the first day back in the office they quickly found clues for three different cold cases and soon things were off to a roaring flame. The vacation seemed like a completely different lifetime ago.

Tony couldn’t help missing what they had at Gibbs’ house, but the snow was melted and the moment lost. Still it reminded him that he had a family right here. He didn’t have to go somewhere to be alone. He had everything he needed right here.

Next time it snowed, he found himself looking forward to it more than he’d ever expected to. It still wasn’t the same as a beach, but it had its own benefits too. Mostly he cherished the way that everyone had tried to cheer him up when his plans had fallen through. Even Ducky and Jimmy had been there when they played in the snow and shared hot chocolate. It was more wonderful than he’d ever expected.

If he could find a way to bottle that feeling forever, he’d never want for anything. Instead, they were in the middle of three different cases and it felt like that vacation was centuries ago. That was the job, though. They just had to make the best of it and try to preserve the rare moments they got together as more than a family.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has no stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least no more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> The 2020 Prompts are open now! Go forth and prompt me! [Click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2020/profile) to add your prompts to my 2020 Prompt Collection. Just click the sign up link. ;) I'm hoping to complete all the 2020 prompts by the end of 2021. 
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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